THE BIRDS OF SINGAPORE ISLAND 
In wcig-ht there seems to be little to choose between the 
male bustard-quail and both sexes of the blue-breasted quail, 
but females of the fotTiier apparently run a little heavier. The 
species are so near in size that there is not much to choose 
between them. 
Distrihution :^Jn any attempt to give the distribution of 
this bird in popular parlance a problem at once presents itself 
and the difficulty will frequently recor throughout this book. 
Strictly speaking, the actual "kind" of bustard-quail found in 
Singapore is somewhat hmited in range for it is only a j':eogra- 
phical race of a more widely spread species and ideas as to 
what constitutes a "species" are by no means settled. 
All that we can do, without going into technical details 
and employing the jargon of serious omithologists^ is to take 
a broad view of each case as it occurs and although in some 
cases the result will not be strictly accurate from a scientific 
point of view, it will be of more value to the student for whom 
the book was written than any more detailed exposition. 
To define the limits of the actual sub-species of any bird 
as found in Singapore would create quite a wrong impression 
because in a good number of cases the actual race found in the 
south of the Malay Peninsula is comparatively restricted in 
range whereas to all intents and purposes the bird may be 
common throughout the whole of southern Asia and perhaps 
even enjoy a range practically cosmopolitan! 
It is possible that it will be remarked that this difficulty 
could have been obviated by giving the range of the bird as 
indicated by its second or "specific" name. 
The objection to this is that very few ornithologists are 
agreed as to what are the limits of a species. The present 
writer takes a very wide view and would unite many birds, 
sometimes common to both America and the Old World, 
contending that although the distance separating them may be 
many thousands of miles they are just as much sub-spt?cies, 
geographical races, local forms or anything else one may care 
to call them as the very slightly altered island forms found in 
many an archipelago. 
[38] 
